The following telegram, dated London, Ist December, appears in the Vancouver News-Advertiver "The morning papers assert that China has agreed to cede to England a strip of territory near Hongkong, and all the surrounding islands, in order to enable England to fortify them securely, and to increase the garrison. It is expected that convention covering the agreement will soon be signed."
Nothing is officially known in Hongkong of any such agreement having been arrived at,_ or if there is knowledge it is treated as confidential. We hope the report is true, fear-that it is, to say the least, premabuts.—Hongkong Daily Press.
One evening at Tengyueh we invited two Chinese to take foreign chowchow with us. They sat perched like monkeys, with their feet on the impromptu chairs, and were so delighted with English tinned salmon, tinned mutton, and tinned fruit, that the three following nights they came auer unasked. While they were gurgling at our sad attempts to pronounce Chinese, and we were defying them to pronounce Auchtermuchty and Ecclefechan aca Scotsman insists they should be pronounced, a full moon face loomed out of the darkness behind us and a voice said: "T spesky very good English language, me spooky very clever, I like go with English gentlemans. China very bad country, and I go with you. Givey me what you like, I satisfied."
Tt was a youth who had learned biding English in the service of a British official in [burma, and had come home to Teng-yueh, and was anxious to earn a few" hundred thousand honest cash by being interpreter. We had a wild and hilly region to pass through, and the Ind had a riy. So we engaged him for a month, We christened him Don Juan, not because of any amorous proclivities, but because it was rather like his Chinese name, and cer-x to say. Ho wasa bright his English, though peculiar, germanic, porty, postprandial smoothness, was grateful and comforting.
'What, however, was neither grateful nor comforting, was the prospect that after the first nine' miles out of Tengyuch "we should be among the hills, and have to walk.. Trundling bicycles over rocks had lost some of its fascination, and through the Wan, the dignified wearer of the eacock's Feather, we engaged six coolies to accompany' us seventy miles. One of them had nothing else to do but to carry money. But first of all we made the one an advance of 2,514 cash to gain their good opinion. The'bicycles were in the street, Don Juan on his pony—dressed ina little brief authority, and as important as Bumble—the coolies were laden with Daggage, and the thoroughfare was packed by-a laughing, good-natured Chinese mob. Then the chief +f the coolies turned obstreperous, He was a weasel-faced, raucous-throated rascal, and he tonk it into his head that 2,514 cash was not a sufficient advance, and that he must have 308. He was told he-would have nothing of the kind. Thereupon he became abusive, threw his bundle on the ground, and regarded us with slant-eyed contempt. We demande: the coolies should advance. Every Chinaman for thirty yards round shouted "dvice. We were in a minority, the crowd began scoffing, hellions gentleman did not improve matters by openly: flouting us and inciting a We argued' for half-an-hour, and anxious to escape into.the country, compromised by advancing a further 600 cash, and promising the remainder in the evening.
'He took the money. But two minutes Inter he said: he~ would not move a step till the whole amount' was Then we rushed" out bicycles - hok into the foul inn yard, got the coolies t" bring in the luggage, and cornered the chief of the gang and made him refund the money we hat paid him, and all the while the four soldiers were slashing at the howling ruffians who tried to force an entrance, "Now," we said to the noisy rebel, "we will occupy the rest of the day in taking you Lbeforethe. Wumat the yamen." ey:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.